Mom May Face More Abuse Charges

March 18, 1994|By STEPHANIE SMITH and Staff Writer

Schwarz Additional child abuse charges may be filed in the case of a woman accused of forcing her stepson to sit outside naked, eat his meals on the floor next to a cat litter box and ultimately killing him.

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp said in a hearing on Thursday that new allegations of physical abuse will be raised in the case of Jessica Schwarz, either in more charges or as evidence in her trial on previous charges of aggravated child abuse.

Cupp declined to elaborate, but autopsy results for A.J. Schwarz, 10, showed his body was covered by more than two dozen bruises and cuts. The pending charges of child abuse against Schwarz, 39, only covers psychological torture, such as the child being forced to wear a T-shirt that read "I'm a worthless piece of ---Don't talk to me," and being kept home from school as punishment.

Court records reveal other bizarre details of the boy's life. A neighbor, Ronald Pincus, said he saw the boy walking Schwarz's family dog at 1:30 a.m. on May 2, which is the day he died.

And, just weeks before his body was found floating naked in the family's above-ground swimming pool west of Lantana, neighbors say they heard Schwarz tell the boy he had a new name - Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer is a Milwaukee serial killer and cannibal.

Schwarz will be tried separately on the charges of abusing her stepson and killing him.

On Thursday, Schwarz's attorney, Rendell Brown, successfully argued there is no evidence linking Schwarz to her stepson's drowning, and the allegations that she abused him before his death cannot be used to show she caused him to die.

But Brown was unsuccessful in getting thrown out as evidence a videotape that shows Schwarz grabbing her daughter and telling the child to be careful of what she said to police.

"Do you want Mommy to go to jail?" she is heard saying on the videotape, which was recorded in an interrogation room at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office on the day her stepson was found dead.